Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal.
      - 1848 Seneca Falls Convention keynote address

My 5th and 6th grade Language Arts teacher added public speaking to the curriculum.  We had monthly poetry competitions (the winner got to wear a pin on her sweater until the next unit) and in 6th grade we chose famous speeches to memorize and present.  Inspired by a YA biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, I picked her 1848 Seneca Falls keynote address.  I've spent most of my life wondering why she's not as famous today as her friend and writing partner, Susan B. Anthony.  Lori D. Ginzberg's biography provides a potential answer.  Anthony was a more public face, and more constant  and pragmatic campaigner for women's rights; Stanton was a firebrand thinker with little patience for public speeches and the tedious follow-up.  They worked well together, but Anthony's activities were more obvious.

Stanton's personality may have also gotten in the way of her fame.  She was a bit vain, somewhat prickly, and possessed a level of arrogance not unexpected in the daughter of a wealthy and prominent family.  As a child, Elizabeth Cady pushed to get a "boy's" education, and went on to the Troy Seminary which was the closest thing to a college education available to American women in the 1830s.  She met and married Henry Stanton, an anti-slavery activist, and though him was introduced to the abolitionist women who founded the women's suffrage movement.

Abolition also figures into why Stanton's modern fame may not match her early contributions to the women's movement.  Although the movement grew out of and remained closely linked to the abolition movement, the Civil War and Reconstruction led to a split.  Some believed that abolition and gaining the vote for former slaves should take priority, while others thought that women's suffrage could be accomplished simultaneously.  Stanton belonged to a third faction, one which prioritized votes for women and she made some frankly racist and anti-immigrant statements.  Even without those statements, I wonder whether the split in the suffrage movement delayed the amendment so long than only one woman who attended the 1848 Seneca Falls convention was still alive to vote legally.  Or did Stanton's (and others') relentless ideology prevent the movement from being pushed aside?  Ginzberg doesn't answer that, but she does provide a clear, if somewhat dryly written, picture of a complicated activist.

From Doon With Death

I'm a Bad Mystery Fan.  I've only read a few Sherlock Holmes stories.  The only book I've read by PD James was Death Comes to Pemberly.  And until a few weeks ago, I hadn't read the books Ruth Rendell wrote under her own name (although I've read most of the books she wrote as Barbara Vine).

I like to read series in order, so I bought  From Doon With Death at the Book Corner a few months ago, and it quickly floated to the top of the pile.  One evening, Ronald Parsons asked his neighbor, Detective Mike Burden, to find his wife.  Margaret Parsons had not come home from her daily errands, and the next morning her body is found in a wooded area.  Why would anyone want to kill a dowdy, downmarket woman with no family other than her husband?  The only clue is a series of love notes hidden in a trove of books Inspector Wexford finds in the Parsons's attic.  They're signed "Doon" and while Doon's identity was probably shocking in 1964, I figured out who the murder was pretty quickly.  Rendell rightly gets some credit for raising the mystery genre from a simple "whodunnit" to the more complex psychological study that merits reviews in serious periodicals, but the motives feel almost as dated as the linoleum in the Parsons's kitchen.  I enjoyed From Doon With Death but it's not up to the level of the Barbara Vine novels.

A Vote for Old "Technology"

I read hard-copy books.  I’m more net addict than Luddite, and I don’t have a strange affection for the smell of old paperbacks.  E-books just don’t appeal to me.  They only deliver the bare content, and that just flattens the experience too much for me.

Holding a screen feels different, hard and stiff, than holding a paperback.  I can’t use one tablet to prop up another, and if I want to check something from an earlier chapter, I can visually estimate where I need to go.  

Books just aren’t the stories they contain.  My copy of Remembered Death doesn’t just tell the story of Rosemary Barton’s murder.  I pick it up and I’m briefly a teenager sprawled on the sofa while babysitting the kids across the street, or a college student decompressing after a fluid mechanics exam, or maybe even the woman having a Panini in a now-closed coffee shop.    

My paperbacks don’t only trace my personal history, but have a history themselves.  I can look at a long running series, like Diane Mott Davidson’s Goldy Schultz mysteries, and see five distinct cover styles over the 17 volumes.  I glance at the shelf and see that Elizabeth George’s novels grew into doorstoppers over time, and my James Bond and Peter Wimsey novels (removed from my parents’ shelves) are non-traditional heirlooms.  Those series, and my motley collection of Agatha Christie, provide an index of post-1950 typefaces and cover art styles.

There’s also the communal experience.  When I see someone reading Hot Six on the train, I can ask if the carpet car has appeared yet, or if Bob the dog has attacked Stephanie’s groceries.  That doesn’t happen with an e-book – no one knows what you’re reading.  It’s also harder to share an e-book, and that’s a real loss.  I have lunch with my friend Michelle every few months and passing books we’ve recently read and enjoyed across the table is part of the fun.   I grew up watching my parents pass books back and forth; the first time my mom handed me a book after she finished it was a step towards adulthood.

Finally, without physical books there can’t be any used bookstores.  As much as I love a smooth, shiny cover and unbroken spine, there’s something adventurous about used bookstores. There’s the thrill of the hunt – maybe I’ll find an out of print book to complete a series, or an edition that was published as a movie tie in years ago with a now nearly forgotten star in a glamour shot on the cover.  The reading-list novel may have marginalia, class notes and personal commentary, and a thick history may have a magazine insert or store receipt once used as a bookmark and now forgotten.  With an e-book, there’s no mystery about who read that book before, or what else may have been going on in their lives.

I know these factors don’t outweigh the convenience of e-books for most people.  Maybe I’ll change my mind some day and no longer consider how heavy a book is before choosing it for my commute.  For now, though, I’m sticking with paper.

Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light

I'm a city girl, so I rarely if ever experience true darkness.  Artificial light is such a part of my life that it feels natural.  In Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light Jane Brox explains how light evolved from an uncontrolled natural phenomenon to something we (mostly) control and how society changed in response.

Early man had only sunlight, and the inadequate glow of the campfire.  We soon learned to control light, hollowing out heat resistant stone and filling the depression with fat and a bit of moss.  Those lamps allows the ancient artists to create the Lascaux cave paintings, softly illuminating a few feet of wall at a time, but life remained tied to the sun cycle.  Over the next several centuries, people developed candles and better lamps, but they were expensive, dirty, and dim.  Tallow candles smelled like burning rancid fat, rushes and pine knots smoked, and none of them gave a strong, steady light.  By the 19th Century, whale oil and kerosene lamps cast a stronger indoor light, but they had to be carefully tended lest they explode and they left a layer of soot on everything in the house.  Gaslight came next, providing a steadier light for those who could afford it but with the risk of asphyxiation.

The bright, steady, clean at the user end electric light was rightly hailed as an advancement.  It made streets safer, night school possible, and pleasure reading a pastime for more than just the idle rich.  Today, however, we're beginning to see the drawbacks.  The perpetual light under which we live alters our circadian rhythms, triggering insomnia in some of us, and the shift work which artificial light allows interferes with our metabolism and leaves us prone to accidents.  Light pollution interferes with telescopes, making our exploration of space more difficult, and urban light distracts migratory birds.  We could not achieve modern levels of productivity without artificial light, but we might have escaped modern levels of stress.

Despite the drawbacks, I'm thankful for controlled artificial light.  Maybe I'd be less of an insomniac without my bedside lamp (although I doubt it - my insomnia is at its worst at mid-summer and on nights with a full moon), but without it I wouldn't be able to read a few chapters to distract myself from my sleeplessness.  I have mediocre night vision so streetlights allow me to walk at night without worrying too much about tripping.  Light makes modern life possible.  Brox's history of light made me appreciate that, and made me look at my favorite childhood books in a different way.  John Holbrook had to strain to read to the Wood family by the light of a smoldering pine knot or a flickering bayberry candle.  Laura Ingalls Wilder remembered the kerosene lamp as bright, but imagine getting all of your light from a single 40 watt bulb.  Even the solidly middle class Cuthbert home would have been full of shadows on those long Canadian winter nights.  We drape those days in a nostalgic veil of romance, but they were dull and inconvenient.  I'm glad I only experienced them vicariously.

Bad Monkey

I wonder what it's like in Carl Hiaasen's brain, but I'm sure I want to know.  It's clearly a strange place, full of strange crimes, corrupt developers, noble if off-the-rails reporters and policemen, smart women, crooked politicians, and strange fetishes.  And animals, like the titular Bad Monkey.  The monkey, an unruly former co-star of Johnny Depp, doesn't have much to do with the story.  He's Neville Strafford's pet, at least until the Neville hands him over to the Voodoo Queen in exchange for a curse.  But more about that later.

Bad Monkey starts with a Florida Keys tourist on the Misty Momma IV catching a dismembered arm (which, of course, is giving the finger).  It falls to disgraced sheriff's officer Andrew Yancy to bring the arm to the Miami Medical Examiner's Office for identification.  The arm belongs to Nichols Stripling, a medical supply magnate (he specializes in scooter chairs and Medicaid fraud) who apparently died in a boating accident.  The arm's daughter thinks her stepmother was involved, so she asks Yancy (who has by then been demoted to restaurant inspector, due to his assault of his girlfriend's husband in full view of a cruise ship) to investigate.  When a man in an orange rain poncho murders the first mate from the Misty Momma IV, and a doctor involved in Stripling's fraud commits suicide, Yancy follows the trail to the Bahamas.  Once there, he meets Neville who has given the Voodoo Queen Driggs the monkey in exchange for a curse on the developer to whom Neville's sister sold their land (including Neville's house).

If Bad Monkey sounds a bit sane for a Carl Hiaasen book, it's because I haven't explained Yancy's campaign against the developer who's built a monstrosity on the lot next to his house, Drigg's antics, multiple restaurant inspections, or why the Russian mob helps tie up the loose ends.  It's typical Hiaasen in that respect, with several incredible (and incredibly funny) threads that barely manage to make sense but somehow resolve.  Read it - just not in a place where hysterical laughter might disturb those around you.

Would You Like a Drink with That Book?

Welcome to Kidderminster Coffee and Tea.  We have a wide selection of books to go with our drinks and light meals.  Grab a cozy mystery to go with your hot cocoa or pick a book and ask us for a snack suggestion.  Here are today’s specials:

Emma by Jane Austen.  Why not have our habanero quesadilla?  Rich, spicy, and the perfect antidote to Mr. Woodhouse’s bowls of gruel.

Introduction to Thermodynamics.  A large pot of coffee, and free refills.  You’ll need it.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas.  A Monte Cristo.  Personally, I prefer the sandwich to the book.

Babbit by Sinclair Lewis.  We’ll pretend your coffee is whiskey, but only if you tell us Joe sent you.

The Brothers Karamzov by Fydor Dostoyevsky.  Russian Caravan tea, and a pen and paper so you can keep the character names straight (offer applies to most Russian novels).

Don Quixote by Cervantes.  My mother’s coffee cake, because she’s disappointed that I’ve never read it.  Read it in Spanish, and she’ll adopt you.

Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle.  A crisp baguette, local cheese, and fresh seasonal fruit.  Or something chosen by our chef (she’s a professional and knows what you really want).

Hot Six by Janet Evanovich.  A cupcake, because you know Stephanie should choose Morelli over Ranger.

The Hunger Games trilogy.  Two sandwiches, a large slice of chocolate cake, and an extra large mocha latte.

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder.   Iced tea and our summer fruit plate (offer only available when the forecasted high temperature is over 85F).

Anything by Dickens.  A large plate of small cookies.  Read five pages; eat one cookie as a reward (that’s how I got through A Tale of Two Cities).

Dracula by Bram Stoker.  Blood sausages, and a seat away from sunlight.

A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond.  Marmalade on toast and a pot of tea (offer only good for Elevenses).

If nothing on our list strikes your fancy, don’t worry.  Our library and menu are extensive enough that by the time you exhaust the potential combinations, a new version of Hamlet will be in preview performances at the primate house.

The Intrigue at Highbury (or, Emma's Match)

I don't like Emma Woodhouse.  She's shallow, manipulative, and a bit of a snob.  I don't like Mr. Knightly either - he's condescending and I can't get past the thought that 25-year-old John Knightly picked 12-year-old Emma out as his future spouse at their siblings' wedding.  Emma, however, has grown on me over the years, and I'm more sympathetic toward Miss Woodhouse.  Wealthy and with a married sister in London, she's the only Austen heroine who can expect a season or two and yet she stands with Fanny Price as the only ones not to spend time in London or Bath.  Smart and capable, she's run a household and managed her agoraphobic, hypochondriac father's neuroses since her early teens, but she's still stuck in a dull backwater with few contemporaries of her social strata.

I wouldn't expect Emma to get along well with Elizabeth Darcy, and Carrie Bebris probably didn't either.  The Darcys are on the way to visit newlyweds Col. and Anne Fitzwilliam (engaged at the end of The Matters at Mansfield) when a young, injured woman stops their carriage.  As they attend to her, someone steals a case containing an heirloom ring and layette.  They're near Highbury, so they report the crime to Mr. Knightly, the local magistrate.

Mr. Knightly, however, has other matters on his mind.  Edgar Churchill, Frank Churchill's uncle, died during a dinner the Knightlys held in honor of Frank and Jane Fairfax's wedding.  Mr. Woodhouse, of course, thinks rich banquet food is the culprit, but no Edgar had been poisoned.  Since Mr. Knightly and Mr. Darcy have a mutual acquaintance, they set off to solve the mystery.

It's not much of a mystery, really - I solved "who" too easily and "why" seemed slapped together.  The Intrigue at Highbury, however, works as Jane Austen fan fic.  Emma's marriage has not stopped her matchmaking, or her competition with Mrs. Elton - and both come into play as the two women try to find a husband for loquacious Miss Bates.  There's also a visit to Harriet Martin (nee Smith), an apparently high-born but mysterious peddler, a return of the gypsies from whom Mr. Knightly rescued Harriet, and Mr. Woodhouse offering Lizzy gruel to cure her convenient but fictional headache.   Bebris hit her stride with The Matters at Mansfield, and even though her mysteries aren't particularly satisfying, her novels are entertaining.

The Others on the Prairie

How and why did Miss Bell come to live in DeSmet? I've read all of the Little House books too many times to count, but I never thought about Miss Bell before this week.  How did a young, single woman end up as a dressmaker in 1883 Dakota Territory?  How is such a tiny town even large enough to support a dressmaker?

Well, I can answer the last question.  Although Laura Ingalls Wilder never describes the physical town after The Long Winter, she mentions how quickly DeSmet grows in both Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years.   The school expands from a dozen students to upper and lower schools (maybe 50-60 students in all), and someone had to live and work in those buildings Pa helped build every spring.  We only meet those who are important to Laura's story, because extraneous characters could become confusing.

But I wonder about Miss Bell.  Laura describes her as young, so she's not a spinster or childless widow trying to make a living.  She's a businesswoman, though, so not as young as Laura, and there's no mention of her family.  Is she the oldest child of a family that went west to stake their claim?  Or did she strike out on her own, deciding that a depot town, even in a remote area, would attract enough residents to support a dressmaker?

As I ponder the question of Miss Bell, I wonder whom else we don't know in 1885 DeSmet.  The school expands, but Florence Wilkins is the "big girl" joins Laura, Mary Power, Minnie Johnson, Ida Brown, and Nellie Oleson in the years spanning the last two books.  I can believe that Laura, Minnie, and Mary were, at 13, the oldest girls in school during The Long Winter because the town was so small then, but did none of the new families send their 15-year-old daughters to school?  We know there's a bank (Mary Powers's new beau works there), and a hotel (one of the first buildings in town), several stores, and two bars.  There's a printer, so there must have been at least a basic newspaper.

I could answer these questions with a little research.  A few hours on Google will bring me links to census data and personal histories.  Do I really want to know, though?  Or would I rather speculate on what would drive a young woman to start a dressmaking business in a frontier outpost.

Gun Games

I don't know what Faye Kellerman has planned for Gabe Whitman.  Is he a replacement for the Deckers' grown children or is he the central character in a story arc within a long running series?  Kellerman introduced Gabe in Hangman.  Kellerman, as usual, deftly integrated Gabe's assimilation into the Deckers' home life and a string of serial killings, but she also brought back Gabe's father Chris Donetti.  Chris is a compelling character, but I find recurring villains unsatisfying and their subsequent appearances forced.  Chris's appearances have avoided extraordinary levels of coincidence so far, but I remain wary.

Gabe takes the lead in Gun Games which devotes equal time and weight to Gabe's personal story and Peter Decker's investigation of a pair of teen suicides.  There's only one obvious connection between Gregory Hesse and Myra Gelb.  They attended the same private school, surrounded by rich kids whose Daddies will buy them out of any trouble.  It's a slightly above average mystery, and Decker, Marge Dunn, and Scott Oliver solve it though the combination of plodding, hunches, and inter-team comfort you expect from people who've worked together for decades.  This time "who" is a bit less of a mystery than "why" or "how" and that's a nice twist on the police procedural.

The detectives also get some help from Gabe.  The brilliant and talented 15-year-old has already complete his high school curriculum and his encounter with the suspects takes place against the backdrop of his clandestine romance with the younger sister of one of Hannah Decker's classmates.  It starts as a non-date date to the opera (Yasmin's sister backed out and if Gabe didn't go, the ticket would go to waste), but soon the sheltered Orthodox 14-year-old and the emotionally battered boy are meeting before school.  This leads to stolen afternoons, frequent text messages, and a violent attack that leads Decker to culprits of the "suicides," as well as the brief appearance of Chris Donetti.  I said at the start of this review that I don't know why Faye Kellerman brought Gabe Whitman into the Deckers' home.  That's not quite true.  I have an idea, but Spoilers, darling.